Henry’s and My Quirky Anecdotes and Reminiscences. We Seek Nourishment for the Soul, a Hope Made New Again, and Those Exquisite Artistic Finds That Can Stir One’s Loins. Of Course, We Still Search for the Prodigal Tartuffe Who Joined the French Feline Legion Many Moons Ago. We Have Yet to Receive Either the Slightest Word or a Lone Cardinal Feather.

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Category Archives: the pusses

I feel as though I should take September’s advice and look for those ageless life-reassuring sophomore’s books, and if I’m spent on such, step to “reaffirming” my quiet second look.
Life re-assuring is a calm, steady breeze;
Oh, your calm voice and gentle touch at once make gentle a “hard lesson”.

Life-reassuring is the denouement within Mr Cumberbatch’s Sherlock Holmes latest venture; on which to “drag aboard” a bloody drip and a better grip.
Life-reassuring is the last question on an assessment test; in a non-related Human Resources Department.
Life-reassuring is its answer, my pencil down far; too quickly.
Life-reassuring is sharing my brood in a never-ending first scene of a novel; yet put to words.

But I digress. Take my Promethean demeanor straight to bed. Take two metaphors and call me in the morning. I’ll tell you what to do.

My virtual countdown to that far-too-real day reminds me that I have four weeks to prepare. On that day, I will be admitted to the hospital to await my yet determined heart. It could be two months. It could be a year. Plus there is likely two months of in-patient recuperation after the transplant. A year? Mon Dieu!

I have tried for several weeks to accept this phase with optimism. I’d like to say that I shall make the most of the solitude, mediocrity, and the unyielding routines that prevent any REM sleep for over four hours. My hands are thrown high into the air above me.

Jon will just have to teach Henry to Skype. Speakerphones perplex him so I foresee a challenge. The thought of not spending such a timespan with my pets is terrifying on the side of dread.

I might be able to coax someone to smuggle a BLT from Merritt Grill. Beyond that, the “heart healthy” low sodium menu has me swooning with anticipation. Coffee. Tea. Blueberry bread. Decent salad dressings. My diet will endure the sticker shock while I remind myself that, one day, I will hopefully have a new heart.

I continue to not have much energy to complete even simple tasks. This very blog and Facebook are becoming too difficult. That’s where Pinterest and Twitter will come in handy.

Perhaps what scares me the most is that, regardless of timelines, Jon will spend a long, long time at home alone. He’ll likely play the “stoic trooper” card, but I know how that hand ends.

My mind is spent so I must close. I just wanted to stop by and say “aloha” and “shalom”.

The accompanying image is a portrait of Claude Monet while he endured a summer confined to a bed in a field hospital. I look at often now that I use it as a wallpaper image for my tablet. It makes me laugh.

Oh, my dear Miss Karen. You would’ve loved a day like this one, as Billboard did long before any talk of war or hormones. The pusses anticipate that those legendary showers might return this very April after many seasons of May arousals. May flowers, similarly, are ashamed of their bloomers and their lateness in bursting.

The Fool’s Day is Wednesday: Marigold’s first and Henry’s twelfth. My beloved and I have shared a baker’s dozen of such silly, yet somehow important days. We no longer discard them. Instead, we rinse them off. And somehow, Lord knows, our talks always turn to recollections. We seem so anxious to share them before they are lost in a sealed vacuum of memories.

I best begin my day and its welcome regimen, and ready myself for the nurse.

On this day of raining pets: stay warm, be kind, and keep your galoshes handy, my friends.

And remember that the day still can’t be trusted. Oh, Casey we miss you!

Today, I am both angered and saddened by the Universe. It seems clear that it has lost its handle on its own demographics. Not to fear: I still maintain some precious cachés of hope. I just cannot remember where at Marklewood I secreted them away for safe keeping. Or for a rainy day.

My wait has crept past the 120 day benchmark and made most memorable and a wee bit sublime by a gorgeous autumnal afternoon. I have held back, remained mum, and kept any sarcasm to a whisper. My patience, however, seems no longer justified or rational. I sat on the stoop for a few hours today listening to my iPod while I pondered my Kafka-esque life. I tried to scream or cry … just to vent emotion, any emotion. The best I could muster was a pout, at least my interpretation of one. Living here in the hinterlands (miles from neighbors and surrounded by ancient pines), though, has instilled some bizarre and foolish pioneer spirit. My voice simply can’t always utter what looms in my imagination or prods my spirit.

I best attempt another session of self actualization and proactive ponderances tomorrow.

Henry, meanwhile, is focusing on damage control while Pfluffer searches for mislaid hope. Of course, they are both convinced that the Universe is partial to a well-intended and kindly puss, and will always give him the “scoop”, inside or otherwise.

On days like today, I suppress my silly and ever-present alter egos, securing Chicken Little in her pen and Pollyanna, on the screened porch with a thankfully “rhetorical” litter of foundling kittens. All secular issues went quickly to “hold” as Jon had yet another doctor’s appointment and, yet again, I was his dutiful nurse, concierge, and traveling companion as he is always mine. Nothing else had reason to matter.

The visit went well and just as we had hoped. Reports of his vim and vigor were neither exaggerated nor unwarranted. He continues to improve, evoking eager smiles from all directions … but most of all mine. There is no greater joy than really feeling his improvement and not just believing, but also knowing that he is casting out the demons with the disease. And today, as we drove the familiar drive home to Marklewood, we were all smiles.

When we finally closed the front door behind us, Jon had a quick and late lunch, and then retired with the pusses. I, on the other hand, sat at my desk, full of sighs and twinkles of contentment. If a mirror had been handy, I could tell you whether a brow was indeed cocked. I closed my eyes and wallowed for a few minutes in joy. Order at Marklewood was still intact.

While Jon surely fell deeper into his slumber, in full feline synchronicity, I cleared a spot on my blotter and, in profound relief, put my head down. With my right arm cradling the side of my face, my left arm resting on my knee, and my eyes yet wide open, I just imagined how life might, or rather, will be. One moment became an hour of ethereal meadows, shooting stars, and children skipping down the road to Ole King Cole’s neighborhood bait shop.

The cows are coming home on their own accord, it seems. I’ll tuck away my horn and spend the day frolicking … and perhaps start thinking about re-purposing Jon’s “walking” staff. But mum’s the word; we wouldn’t want Jon to add sheep to his list of farm animals he’d like to raise.

Today I am Little Boy Blue and I am tickled pink. Mind you, those are colors that I take neither lightly nor readily. Tomorrow is yet another day. I patiently wait to see which personas vie.

Alas, in a world smitten with chaos and sorrow, how sublime the last of May’s Saturdays can be!
The world’s timepiece stops for the weekend. The clouds waft in the heavens. And in the woods, the pusses frolic with the winged daredevils, who taunt them with their airborne shenanigans.

Of course, the squirrels of Marklewood are simply “less gifted” and yet unaware of their disadvantage and fate. Then again, there is rarely a feline “underdog” to be found anywhere in these piney hinterlands, if indeed such a mythical character exists! Before such tailed rodents threw their first aim at Yorick, they were doomed to failure. That enterprising marmalade puss has considered taking his collection of squirrel tails and creating a smaller version of the Daniel Boone and Davey Crockett coonskin hats. The savvy and dignified Kitty Carlisle has suggested that they put them on consignment at Dollywood along with decorative plastic tubs filled with Henry’s favorite, but eclectic, roasted chicken salad.

That, my friends, is a sign of restored equilibrium here in the hinterlands. At least such is likely when the sun glistens so and time stands still.

Jon is eating dinner, albeit like a reluctant field mouse … drifting off into dreambits and feigning a listen to NPR. Every hour or so, he checks on the tiny abandoned kittens that he seems to have adopted: Karen Black and Delores Gray. Naturally, one is black; the other, solid steel gray.
I , however, smile and remember what life was like before, confident that it will return in an even grander form!